


Bullets and Metal

by orphan_account



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Blood and Gore, Cussing, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies, kinda inspired by dying light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 23:59:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14068422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: A Lams zombie apocalypse AU.Laurens and Hamilton are trying to get a file Washington needs, but Hamilton sees a zombie that looks familiar and puts a pause to their mission.





	Bullets and Metal

There was a calm air around the camp when we had entered, cooling, our reddened cheeks and biting the skin hidden beneath the loose clothing we both wore. We had been running, light on our feet, and dodging the largest groups of infected we came across, we were able to avoid them, most too stupid or slow to keep up, and even the few we had encountered were taken on with relative ease, a swing of a knife, or a shove that left them disorientated. But mostly we ran, a timed schedule to make it to the camp just before the sun sunk below the tree line, encasing us in darkness.

The camp itself was not well maintained, booze, and drugs, and guns, littered the floor, but the place looked mostly intact, tents swaying to dance with the wind, and makeshift buildings standing steady behind. It wasn’t a pretty place, and I could see the grimace on John’s face, the scowl of distaste, and distrust, in the camp, in the mission, in the air.  
He stopped me silently, his hand taking my wrist, a gesture that would prevent us from being caught prematurely, and tugged me, urging me to duck behind a wall.  
He kept his hand on mine, as he leaned forward, peaking over the wall, but no one was there, not that I saw, and not that I heard.  
“There’s no one there,” My voice was hushed, masked by the wind, and meant for only his ears. “He said there would be.”

I knew I put too much faith in Washington, I knew he hated that, I hoped they always had the answers, but it was the opposite for him, it seemed as if he was hoping their information was faulty, and sometimes he was right to. It was a downfall of his, to be so reluctant towards anyone besides him and myself. But maybe that was my downfall, not his.

“Did they say anything about the radiation levels, because their pretty damn high,” I glanced at the geiger counter attached to my wrist, a replica of the one he was wearing, a newer model handed out to most of the survivors during the first stages of the courentine, small, portable, and effective.

“Like I said, they only mentioned resistance,” He refused to react to my words, and instead tossed his bag onto the floor, going through the contents before grabbing a pair of binoculars. He poked his head past the wall, non-reactive, and calculating. I spoke again“God, I hope it’s not those fucking infected.”

“They might be easier to sneak past than people,” I scoffed, grabbing a few throwing knives from my own backpack, and tucking them on a belt I used to hold different weapons, a gun, a knife, ammo.

“Watch my bag, Imma get a better look,”

“Alex, don’t be an idiot, someone might still be there,”

“Even if they are, there’s no one outside, I’ll be fine,”

He bit his lip, hating my decision, knowing how many things could go wrong, but trusting me nonetheless. Maybe I was being too reckless, I probably needed to calm down, but night was coming, and sticking out in the open then was far worse than risking the few bullets that might try to catch me, I thought maybe he knew that too.

I crawled past him, taking a glance at the situation he had, but like before the only movements had been the flaps of the tent, and occasionally a wrapper or trash blown by the wind. All things I could hear from behind the wall.

There were two walls separating the camp from outside, one of which we sat, a few scattered trees that had the potential to make fine cover, and some rocks, large enough to fit either him or I, but not much else. Overall the entrance was barren, and one-sided, nearly suicide if Washington was right and there was people inside. I could see a broken tripwire at the base of a tent, a loose grenade, surrounded by a small crater, and shells of bullets scattered in rivets along the dirt.  
I kneeled in a running position, my hands cupping the dirt below me, I could run if need be, and so could he, but behind this wall, he was safe, and worrying about him could be set aside for just a few minutes,

“Alex wait,” He grabbed my hand, his fingers touching the dirt around mine, and holding me in silence, “Listen,”

I did, tuning my ears to become liberal to the sounds surrounding us, a cricket's chirp, and the wind, and the tent’s flaps, and the skirting of leaves on the ground. But the closer I listened, the clearer I could hear a child's small cry emanating from one of the tents inside the camp.

“It’s a trap,” He pulled me back so I was completely hidden behind the wall.

“But everything is disabled, shells are everywhere if it is a trap someone’s already triggered it,” I needed to see what was there, the group was counting on this file. He was silent for a bit, probably knowing this, probably pondering the best course of action.

“You can’t be serious Alex,” A stupid response and he knew it.

“If there’s really a kid in there, I don’t need it weighing down my conscious,” I could have scoffed at my own words, I knew they were lies I didn’t give a damn about some kid, I needed the file, but I knew he would. “It’ll be quick, an in and out, that’s it. If I find the file I’ll get it,”

He still didn’t look convinced but his grip had loosened, and I was able to take my hand back. He looked at me, and muttered.

“A quick in and out,” a sentiment for himself.

 

I turned around once again glancing over my surroundings, clear as they were a moment ago, I took the chance, and ran out of my hiding spot, not subtly, but it didn’t matter, the entrance assured anyone living could catch me whether I be subtle or otherwise, a disadvantage, but I had the confidence to urge me forward.

I ducked behind one of the rocks closer to the first tent and again listened, here at this closer distance, I could more definitely hear the child's voice, make out words, and tone, a song that was being sung beneath the sobs. One I had heard as a boy, a French tune travelers would sing while loading boxes, the tune playing french words, once embedded in my mind. Not a sound a machine or recording could emulate.

I was nearly frozen in place, and the tune was so soft, I could have sworn it was merely my ears hoping for some old world remnant that wasn’t there, and more clearly I could hear the static of a communication radio from the inside of the tent, but sounded broken, with no answer.

I crawled over to the tent opening the flap and peaking inside. It was nothing special, and confermiative to my feelings, dead bodies littered the ground, men and women, but no children, and all have bullet wounds, littering their bodies. One man held the radio receiver in his open hand, he was the closest, so I kneeled down next to him and scanned his body, he was turned so his face was planted in the ground, and small blots of red were riddled along his light shirt. He wore a similar belt to me, a silenced gun attached to one of the loops. I ran my hands over the gun, it was better than mine, so I took my gun ejected the bullets, and loaded his. I rolled him over so he faced me, and saw the rips in his shirt and torso, red, and teased, and not infected. I looked at the rest, all had similar wounds, bullet holes, and no bites, and all dead.

I turned my attention from the bodies to the radio that was playing soft static, a voice too clouded by it to be made out, I took the dial, and tuned it, so the voice was clearer.

“We need help our settlement was raided we need supplies, and lost more than half of our settlement if anyone can hear this we are begging for assistance,” The radio was on repeat, an open station, I grabbed the receiver in the dead man's hand, maybe I was a bad person, but who wasn’t during these circumstances.

“We need help our settlement was raided we need suppli-”

“So does everyone else,” I let the receiver linger on my lips a few seconds, waiting for a reply, blood like water caking them.

“Fuck you asshole,” The static returned.

 

I place the receiver back on the radio, strumming the orange plastic. So it was a raid, a hit and run, and if that file we were looking for had any significance at all or any monetary value for that matter, it was gone. And the mission would fail. Raiders were a nuisance, always hunting, always looking for someone to sink their teeth into. But they would bend for cash, and drugs, and mercenaries, another job done by someone else. I didn’t think the file was worth the trouble, but if we didn’t find the file, and it was taken by raiders, Washington would send us anyways, even if he knew the risks and what raiders could do. I was fine with getting my hands dirty, satisfied even, but I knew John hated it.

The crying started again, but this time I could make out the French words, could nearly sing along. I walked out of the tent, motioning over to John. He took a glance behind him before heading in my direction, his hand weary over a stealth knife, and my backpack slung over a single of his shoulders. He tossed mine to me when he was meters away, and holding the flaps of the tent open to take a peek inside, dropping the knife as he did so.

“Could you tell what took them out,” His voice was nearly haunted.

“Bullet wounds. I didn’t see any bite marks,”

He nodded and backed away going to another tent, and I followed his actions. He was becoming too sentimental, and I knew once we found the child he would ask to bury the parents.

I walked to the other side of the camp, the song becoming louder. So much I could make out the words sung. And I followed, stepping so I mediated the sound made by my shoes against the gravel, The child might run if scared, and maybe this kid knew where the file was.

There was a small cabin the tent had been leaning against, a door, and the song emanating from inside, muffled by the wood, and the chains that were holding it inside. I didn’t have bolt cutters, I had a gun. I knew the shot would echo throughout the forest drawing infected and raiders from the woods, but then again, silencers did wonders.  
I raised the gun to the chain and fired. The silencer working to keep the shot from ringing, but the bullet was loud against the metal.

The sound quiets the child's singing, the song billowing in the air, haunting the silence, teasing it, a memory formed in the moments it takes to blink. But I am humming, and carry the song forward.

“Frère Jacques, Frère Jacque,” I pushed open the door, my voice light and carrying past the hardwood. The door creaks.

“Dormez-vous…”

The light floods into the room, dust, and particles, floating with the wind made by the door. But not enough so I could make sense of the various shapes in the dark.  
I stepped in, the floor, tile, echoing the footsteps of my shoes, but otherwise nothing. The smell came to me first, an old stale type of ruin, like rotten eggs and iron, stinging and wretched against my nose. But amongst the strong smells, a more subtle scent of baby powder.

The walls were wooden, some with sunlight peeking through small cracks, lighting a sliver of fabric, or metal. But in the midst of one of the walls was a single bullet hole, light flooding to a broken music box on a table adjacent to me. The small happy patterns visible only because of the hole, but broke so figures were separated, and pieces of glass were spread across the table.

Yet the more I examined the room the less I understood the song that had been sung, bodies lay in the middle of the room, piled like hay in a horses pen, and flies were swarming.

One of the bodies was close enough to touch. An old women, with grey hair matting the floor around her, stuck together with dried blood, far darker than the blood I had I seen on the bodies outside. I kneeled down, to see a large stain on her sleeve. I took her arm into the few places of light and removed her sleeve. Underneath was multiple bite marks.

I dropped my gun.

“Dormez-vous…” I saw a small movement from behind the bodies.

I reached for the gun, my hand quiet, and slow, but the moment I started moving whatever it was behind the bodies lunged at me.

It pushed me onto to my back, a thump sounding at the sudden contact of me and the floor. A small girl was on top of me, a child who was far stronger than any of the other infected I had seen. One whose boney arms in life would have been no good, shoved me with all of the force to pin me on the ground. Her face was troubling, skin peeling off her cheek, and curly hair sticky with her blood. Her eyes red, and her expression lost, and afraid, and sad.

I almost screamed, but instead, I reacted as I had the first time I had seen someone infected. An old girlfriend, someone who I wish might have came back to me, but never would, someone who I had hurt and who I had left, and when I’d seen her when I’d seen her bloodshot eyes, and fanatic expression, her face looking far too similar to this kid now. I had cried.

 

For minutes, I shoved her back, using all of the muscles, and strength I had built upscaling buildings, but as the time continued, my thoughts began to wander, I was murderer, a killer, someone who would be willing to exploit a town for money he had had enough of, I was alive because of this selfishness, this little girl was not.

I slowly began to let my resistance go.

“Alex!” His voice was strong, punctuated, by a bat swinging to knock the body off of mine.

I lay there, listening, my ears feeling clogged, and my eyes focused solely on the small opening in the ceiling. It wasn’t a quarantine, these assholes had been feeding this girl their dead. Disgusting, almost wrong.

“Alex! Get the fuck up,” I heard John’s voice, a struggle, a fight. I turned my head, watched him holding the girl away from him with the knife he had, blood ebbing from his fingers, gripping the blade. He needed help.

I shot up grabbing the gun from the floor beside me, and aiming it at the creature and taking the first shot.

I hit her arm, jerking her so she leaned towards the bullet wound, fazing her just long enough for him to get his stance back, but nearly as quickly as I had shot, she lunged back at him, though he had managed to position his knife to strike her in her throat, she was far to. I had to act quickly is I wanted him to be alright. I aimed for her head this time, my finger itching towards the trigger, my pulse beating through my hand, and shot.

There was no sound, her body didn’t hit the floor, and she flew right into John’s chest, as though embracing him for a hug. I had no more bullets. They had fallen to the floor, and she had stopped moving. I had no more bullets.

There was silence for a few moments, the cabin’s wretched smell, suffocating, and unnerving. I waited, for anything, for her to come at me, at him, for him to call my name, maybe for my life to fall apart, in a moment slipped away, I waited but nothing.

I held my breath.

Another small movement, her arms twitching, then whole body flipped over, landing on a few pieces of the broken music box. In her neck, a combat knife, and small trickles of red flowing on the blade.

I swiftly knelt beside him, my arms looped around his and urging him to lean against me.

 

“We can’t stay here, there might be more,” My voice was urgent, quiet next to his ear.

“They would have heard the noise,” He pushes past me to walk on his own, he sounded broken, “But this place reeks.”

He broke our contact, walking out, I stood there watching, before glancing over to the girl, the music box. The table stood as still and lifeless and it had previously, unchanged, and still sporting, small metal parts. I approached it and put a finger on the broken music box. It was my curiosity that caused this, the small girl who I killed, who could sing, this tune etched into the teeth of the music box. I took it and felt a shard of the glass implanting into the padding of my middle finger, maybe I was becoming insensitive to the sight of blood, or the pinching of broken skin, but it didn’t bother me, I simply winced, leaving the glass in my finger, maybe to be embedded in my body, or maybe for the masochistic part of me that knew I deserved pain. I looked back at the table and saw a stack of files. I put the music box into my backpack, grabbing the files, and reading the numeric title.

771418

The file we had been searching for. I scowled tucking the file under my arm and leaving the cabin. I crossed by the girl and leaned down, she did look like my ex, no not even her, but her sister. Tanned skin and curly hair, eyes looking far too young to be lying lifeless on the floor, hurt as though she had been left behind because she was. I brought my hand up to wipe a piece of matted hair out of her face. I took the knife and swiftly pulled it so it dislodged from her neck. Cold. Lifless.

I took the knife and wiped the blood with the hem of my shirt and walked outside. John sat on one of the guard benches, fiddling with a different knife, one of the many he had, a silver pocket knife used to cut hides, and slivers of animal meat. Instead, he brought the knife to meet the cuts in his skin, puncturing them, opening them, so the blood oozed out and tainted the cleanly kept knife. Not wincing. Not blinking.

I sat his knife beside him, choosing to ignore his morbid actions, after all, who was I to judge this man. But he didn’t look at me, just the open wounds harbored in the palms of his hands.

“Tell me at least your fine.” He turned to me, raising his broken hand to my face, and using his thumb to stroke my cheek, warm and wet, “God, Alex, are you?”

I took his hand, bringing it down to examine the damage, and hated myself. Hated how selfless this man was, hated how he loved me, more than himself. Hated myself for putting him through all the shit I did.

 

“What about you,”

He didn’t answer me, but I opted to grab his bag, to search for the gauze he kept. I was no good with medicine but, I could at least attempt to bandage his hand, especially with him sitting so close.

“Don’t,” He jerked his hand away pushing the bag further behind him, out of my reach.

“What the hell man?” I started to lean over him to get the bag, but he pulled me back to sit in his lap, his body was almost smaller than mine, and the position was awkward, but his position allowed him to keep me in an immobile hug, arms preventing me from leaving.

“Why won’t you let me help you? You're acting weird.”

“Just...Can we sit here like this...for a minute,” His behavior was almost scaring me, his demeanor, more assertive strong, and his dismal talk doing nothing to calm my nerves.

But I complied to his wishes, my tense posture calming, and his arms relaxing in response. The blood of his hand drying as the moments drew on, and sunlight abating into the warm oranges, and pinks of dusk. It was cheesy, cliched, something we forced this relationship to remain far from, whether it be from the circumstances of the world, or the way we hated those stupid teenage romances, but now as the sun lay dying and the night gave these moments the privacy of us, and the tension of the camp the night brought, I found myself uncaring, and almost happy.

“Did I ever tell you how I found out about this stupid disease.” Of course, he hadn’t when we met we both decided the subject was taboo. His experience was his business, and mine, was mine.

“No,”

“Well I think it’s about time you know” He pulled me closer to him. “I guess it wasn’t anything special, my life I mean, the day too, but mostly my life. I worked in weapons isle at fucking Walmart of places, the only job some high school dropout could get,” He paused his fingers twirling a piece of my hair between his fingers.

“I was a failure from the fucking start, my mom, she died when I was younger, and I-I think something broke after that, my grades started dropping, my dad started to drink, and eventually I dropped out of high school. I wanted to be an artist, like my mom, stupid now that I look back on it, Turned out to be the biggest fucking mistake of my life. I got a job, but my dad wasn’t satisfied and one thing led to another, basically, he ended up kicking me out. It was only a few months before the outbreak, I was sixteen. I choose Walmart because employee benefits and they had whatever the fuck you really need. Food, clothes, condoms,” He nudged me, “So there I was John Laurens, the high school dropout ready to start a whole new me.” His voice took a joking tone but came down.

“At the start, it seemed like I had it good, no parents, no rules, I could fuck whoever the hell I wanted, stay out till when-fucking-ever, and there would be no consequences, no fighting, no screaming, ever again. But after a while, living in some shit car I barely managed to get, and broke off my ass. I realized I fucked myself over big time, but you know what, It wasn’t just the school at that point, it wasn’t even my dad, I could go back, become the vale-fucking-dictorian, but after what I’d done, what I put my family through, there was no way I could ever show my face to them. It started somewhere between there, all the self-pity, and hate” He put his head in my hair, nearly crying.

“You know what the really sad thing is. It’s that this,” He waved around us, “This fucking Hollywood apocalypse is the best thing that’s happened to me,”

“Why.”

“The old world is over.”

“No. Why now.” He scoffed at my question before, Turning me slightly to face him. He swiped his hair away from his shoulder. I gulped.

The skin around his shoulder was puffed red and broken, the way the old woman was, teeth marks coating his neck like love bites, but far more aggressive. I almost choked.

“God Alex, you act it’s the end of the world.” He laughed. This was my world.

“And anyway, when we met we made a deal. Do you remember what it was?”

“No.” Of course I did.

“‘Once you’re ready to cough up yours’” He repeated my words.

“Yeah...Okay.” My voice was cracking. “I was with an old girlfriend… She was getting her clothes to move out, then it happened”

 

“No Alex, tell me what really happened.”

“I-I can’t,”

“It’s just us here,”

“I’m a bad person, You’d hate me.”

“That’s not true,”

“I’m a killer,”

“It doesn't matter Alex.”

“Fine,” I broke.

“I was crying on that day, my girlfriend, she...broke it off. She came by, saying she wanted one last goodbye or some other poetic shit like that, but she came crawling in the door, falling over I mean I thought she was drunk,” My voice cracked, “but she said she didn’t feel good, so I put her in my bed and let her sleep, I slept on the couch playing some lame ass game. I don’t remember falling to sleep. I just remember that fucking knife and her expression, she attacked me and I...I stabbed her.”  
He was sitting quietly listening, his eyes falling every so often,

“I still love you,” I could have laughed, if not for the irony.

“And I love you.” He chuckled, using his hands to rub circles in my hair.

“I’m sorry Alex.”

“Why the hell would you be sorry?”

“You’re out of bullets,” His tone was dismal. I gulped.

“What,”

“Here take these,” He slid some ammo, from his pocket into my hand.

“I don’t get it.”

“Load your gun.”

“What.”

“Just do it.” I grabbed the gun with the silencer and loaded it with the new bullets. His eyes traced my hands, and the bullets and the trigger, part of me understood what he was going to ask but part of me never believe what I didn’t want to.

“Okay,”

“Okay,”

“Shoot me Alex.”

“No way in hell.”

“Please, you know how this is going to end, just make it easier on both of us, I don’t want to die knowing you could go with me, I’m selfish, I can’t do it myself, Please.”  
I backed away looking at him, his eyes pleading. I closed my eyes, and leaned in and kissed him. One last time.

I took the gun and aimed it between his eyes. Ones he kept shut.

“What kind game was it Alex.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Yes you do”

“Zombies.”

“Why don’t we just call them that.”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe we just can't take a joke.”

The shot sounded louder than the bullet against the metal.


End file.
